Carl D. Sayer

As sensitive indicators of aquatic ecological change, chironomids can be employed to track pond responses to management and restoration. Restoring overgrown, terrestrialized farm ponds by major woody vegetation and sediment removal substantially increases landscape-scale chironomid diversity.

A little-known freshwater relative of the cod, the Burbot was lost from Britain sometime in the 1970s. Here, a team of ecologists look at the potential for its reintroduction and explain how this could be used to catalyse the wider restoration of our rivers. If you owned the Usborne Spotter’s Guide to Fishes (Wheeler 1978) as a keen young naturalist it is likely that you did not have a tick next to a fish called the Burbot Lota lota.

Tamed by centuries of human modification and poisoned by pollution, Britain’s rivers, lakes and streams are in critical condition. In the 16th article in BW’s Wilding for Conservation series, Carl Sayer, Oliver van Biervliet, Reagan Pearce and Theodore Mills ask whether rewilding could offer hope for these degraded freshwater ecosystems. Britain’s lowland rivers, lakes, ponds and other freshwater sites are troubled waters.